Need Help With Olympic Athlete Client

Not sure if this is the right section to post this question in but I was hoping someone could help me out.

I've been personal training for several years now. My clients have ranged from bodybuilders to football playes to soccer moms to average joes looking to get in shape.

I just got a female olympic luge athlete who's looking to start training with me. I don't know a thing about this sport or how I should go about designing her workout. Right now I usually avoid fancy exercises and just stick with basic compound exercises with a focus on gaining strength.

This would be a great opportunity to get more clients, possibly more olympic athletes so I want to make sure she's happy and gets great results.

Does that involve pushing a sled in the beginning? Maybe work for strength and speed using shoulders, chest, triceps, and legs. Probably should get the core to be strong as well. Sounds like you're on top of it.

Not sure if this is the right section to post this question in but I was hoping someone could help me out.

I've been personal training for several years now. My clients have ranged from bodybuilders to football playes to soccer moms to average joes looking to get in shape.

I just got a female olympic luge athlete who's looking to start training with me. I don't know a thing about this sport or how I should go about designing her workout. Right now I usually avoid fancy exercises and just stick with basic compound exercises with a focus on gaining strength.

This would be a great opportunity to get more clients, possibly more olympic athletes so I want to make sure she's happy and gets great results.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nice one. Watch some luge vids on youtube and observe their movements...espcecially at the start. Knowing their movements and the muscles used should help.[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGUaxpoL_hM"]YouTube - Torino 2006 - Luge[/ame]

Focus on big, powerful lifts. If you don't know how to coach Oly lifts I'd look in to that first. Stick with snatch, clean, rows, squats, the like. Also, maybe go for some agility work. Fast feet are good for a luge to get it started. Her coach will probably work technique and SPP so you should just focus on conditioning and gaining some raw power and agility.

She mentioned that this routine is a bit monotonous for her and she's looking for an extra "edge" that will help her get stronger is a shorter amount of time so I'm thinking I might want to switch things around.....

Definitely core exercises and Id amend what was already given to her with more specific exercises similar to her luge movements.

I am quite surprised though..I compete in slalom skateboard racing nationally and am friends with a lot of street lugers which is very identical to winter luge. At her level of competition, also in regard to it just being a winter sport, if it were me, Id invest in a street luge for the summer time so the movements can be worked on year round.

One thought that came to mind...visual the absolute start of the luge. Then visualize an apparatus similar to that of the Total gym. The board on rollers set at the incline while she mimics that start off movement. Perhaps bands could be placed so as she executed that starting movement on the "Total gym" or similar apparatus, she would be duplicating the start execution at a higher resistance than what she would do for a competition.

If it were me, Id use one of my larger racing skateboards or similar set up that were wide enough for her to sit on. Then Id have her use her arms to accumulate forward momentum up a gentle incline ..again mimicking part of that start execution.

Having raced skateboards and snowboards up to world cup levels, from experience, many many races are won or lost depending on the quality of the start. That doesnt rule out the many other variables that come into play, but more often than not, weak starts yield lost races and slow times.